Inventing the people : the rise of popular sovereignty in England and America

**"The best explanation that I have seen for our distinctive combination of faith, hope and naiveté concerning the governmental process." ―Michael Kamman, __Washington Post__** This book makes the provocative case here that America has remained politically stable because the Founding Fathers invented the idea of the American people and used it to impose a government on the new nation. His landmark analysis shows how the notion of popular sovereignty―the unexpected offspring of an older, equally fictional notion, the "divine right of kings"―has worked in our history and remains a political force today.

"The best explanation that I have seen for our distinctive combination of faith, hope and naiveté concerning the governmental process." —Michael Kamman, Washington Post

This book makes the provocative case here that America has remained politically stable because the Founding Fathers invented the idea of the American people and used it to impose a government on the new nation. His landmark analysis shows how the notion of popular sovereignty—the unexpected offspring of an older, equally fictional notion, the "divine right of kings"—has worked in our history and remains a political force today.

Morgan argues, in effect, that representative democracy is a tool to bolster rule by the powerful few over the many; the majority are thus led to believe they control their own destiny. In this quietly subversive rereading of our history, American colonists perfected the fiction of popular rule by involving voters in extravagant electoral campaigns and by insisting that elected representatives derived their power from their constituents. Meanwhile, elitist colonial rulers who owned considerable property pulled strings to get their way. --from vendor description Traces the origins of democratic government in England and the U.S. compares their approaches, and discusses elections and the philosophical background of political representation WE MAY PERHAPS QUESTION today whether force is always on the side of the governed or even whether it always has been, but by and large Hume's observation commands assent.